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  • 🚗 Waymo Robotaxi Recall | 💾 Databricks Snaps Up Neon | 🚘 Android Auto Hits 250 M Dashboards

🚗 Waymo Robotaxi Recall | 💾 Databricks Snaps Up Neon | 🚘 Android Auto Hits 250 M Dashboards

Robotaxis tap the brakes, Databricks gobbles a cloud-native database, and Google’s in-car OS shifts into high gear.

Author

Sascha Thiele
May 14, 2025

🔥 Warm-Up

Hey there, silicon surfer—welcome to Wednesday’s download.

  • Waymo’s robo-fleet hits an unexpected speed bump.

  • Databricks buys itself a shiny new database brain.

  • A desert startup stuffs $100 M of AMD muscle into the cloud.

  • Researchers call out North Korea’s undercover coders.

  • Android Auto quietly slips into a cool quarter-billion dashboards.

🖋 Editor’s Note

The tech tape today reads like a road trip: a robotaxi recall at the first gas stop, a database detour in the Valley, and cyber-spies trying to hitch a ride halfway across the globe. AI money keeps raining on anything with “infrastructure” in the pitch deck, while regulators and researchers tap the brakes on who’s holding your data—or your steering wheel. Grab snacks; the highway’s only getting weirder.

––Sascha Thiele

💰 The Market

Global equities are coasting higher after soft US inflation data and a 90-day tariff truce cooled last month’s jitters. The S&P 500’s AI-heavy “Magnificent 7” are back in pole position, with Tesla reclaiming a $1 T cap and Nvidia sprinting 18 % in a week. Dollar bulls are stepping off the gas as traders wager the Fed blinks on rates by September. Keep an eye on tomorrow’s retail-sales print and a cluster of Fed-speak—any whiff of stickier prices could yank yields north and clip tech multiples. Meanwhile, energy drifts lower ($63.35 /bbl WTI) and gold takes a breather near $3,220/oz; momentum still favors risk, but breadth is thin—tighten those stops.

🚀 Today in Tech

TL;DR: A software glitch made some fifth-gen Waymo vehicles misread chains and parking-lot gates, resulting in low-speed fender-flirts (no injuries). Alphabet’s AV unit has already patched the fleet with sixth-gen code and says service continues in SF, LA, Phoenix, and Austin. Regulators are watching closely after last year’s Cruise fiasco, and Waymo’s June 2024 recall is still fresh in memory. Investors care because any additional NHTSA probe could slow expansion.

Further read: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/12/waymo-second-robotaxi-recall-autonomous-vehicle

TL;DR: The lakehouse kingpin is snapping up cloud-native Postgres spin-off Neon to automate data plumbing for generative AI. Neon’s auto-sharding tech should let Databricks customers spin up task-specific databases on demand, trimming latency for chatbots and agents. Deal closes by July 31 and folds 140 Neon staff into the $62 B unicorn. Analysts see this as Databricks’ MosaicML sequel—buy the stack, keep Snowflake looking over its shoulder.

Further read: https://www.reuters.com/technology/databricks-buy-startup-neon-1-billion-wsj-reports-2025-05-14/

Deep dive: https://www.wsj.com/articles/databricks-strikes-1-3-billion-deal-for-generative-ai-startup-mosaicml-fdcefc06

TL;DR: Las Vegas-based TensorWave raised a monster Series A led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures to scale an 8,000-GPU Instinct MI325X cluster. The startup claims run-rate revenue will rocket 20× this year as customers hunt for non-Nvidia compute. Funds will expand data-center footprint and headcount past 100. The CEO quipped the firm is “democratizing AI horsepower”—because apparently even GPUs have a civic duty, unlike my dad’s stationary bike.

Further read: https://www.reuters.com/business/ai-infrastructure-firm-tensorwave-raises-100-million-latest-funding-2025-05-14/

TL;DR: Cyber-intel firm DTEX published a trove of identities and photos that tie DPRK developers—operating via Chinese front companies—to crypto heists and Fortune 500 infil. The “misfit alliance” behind the leak hopes public shaming burns aliases faster than Pyongyang can mint them. Experts warn the scheme bankrolls missiles and evades sanctions; HR teams everywhere are re-scrubbing résumés.

Further read: https://www.axios.com/2025/05/13/china-north-korea-it-worker-fraud

TL;DR: Google says a quarter-billion vehicles now support Android Auto, up 50 M in a year. Over 50 models also ship with full Android Automotive baked in. The announcement tees up “Gemini for the road” with live translation and AI summaries headed to dashboards. Automakers get more Google services; drivers get smarter commutes (and probably more privacy policy pop-ups).

Further read: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/12/24319513/hyundai-kia-genesis-google-maps-places-api-integration

✅ GitHub — Apple open-sources FastVLM, its speed-demon vision-language encoder from CVPR 2025.

✅ ETH Zurich — New “Branch Privilege Injection” attack revives Spectre-style leaks on modern Intel CPUs.

✅ 9to5Google — I/O attendees will demo Google’s prototype XR glasses next week.

✅ Ars Technica — Hands-on with Doom: The Dark Ages—shotguns, shields, and dragons, oh my.

✅ TechCrunch — xAI promised a safety report “soon”; two deadlines later, still tumbleweeds.

✅ Reuters — Privacy watchdog NOYB threatens Meta with a class-action smackdown over using Europeans’ posts to train AI.

✅ TechCrunch —Google signs a 1.8-gigawatt advanced-nuclear pact to keep its future AI data centers humming.

✅ The Verge — House Republicans slip a 10-year freeze on state AI laws into a budget bill, prompting “Dark Age” warnings from watchdogs.

✅ Reuters — AWS will pour $4 B into Chilean data centers, touting near-waterless cooling in a drought-prone nation.

✅ Ars Technica — Hardware hackers jailbreak a $1.3 K espresso machine so ChatGPT can choose your pour-over profile—beans, meet beams.

Shoot us your own favorite weird-and-wonderful links—top picks land in a future issue:
💌 [email protected]

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